A few days before the winter holidays, 21 out of the 23 workers working on the Brown production line started a wildcat strike by which they were demanding to receive the bonusses that were promised to all the factory workers. At the beginning of the strike, the employer (by way of the human resources department personnel and the higher staff of the workers) asked the striking workers to leave the facility of the factory. During the strike the women workers received threats, being told that they were going to face the consequences of their actions by being fired. read full story / add a comment

There are about 5 million employees in Romania, currently. Some other 3 million people (a quarter of the local work force) work in other countries from the European Union, mostly Spain and Italy. The official unemployed people are said to represent 6.7%, but this is not accurate. This number covers only people who have been registered, and it is not calculated according to the entire number of people who could work but are left out. Therefore, the real number of the unemployed people is not really known (or it is not reported by the government), but a logic deduction puts it somewhere at an additional one million people. [Română] read full story / add a comment

About nearly no other European country is there so little known about the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movement as Romania. Up to the present day, studies have shown that between 1907 and 1916 the anarcho-syndicalist movement here reached the climax of its development. Especially, in industrial towns such as Ploieşti, Galaţi and Brăila, the majority of workers organized themselves on revolutionary syndicalist principles, published anarcho-syndicalist magazines and fought for the improvement of life and work conditions through direct action methods. Moreover, it has been proven that explicit anarchist circles existed previously in towns such as Iaşi and Bucureşti, often as part of the social democrat party. An overview on the rise of Romanian anarchism is offered by the life and the memoirs of Zamfir C. Arbure, Temniţă şi exil (Imprisonment and Exile). [Română] read full story / add a comment

The current October issue of the “Industrial Worker” of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) includes an interview with the international secretary of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative from Romania (I.A.S.R.). In the interview, he discusses the organizational structure and aspirations of the main work of the Initiative as well as the difficulties which anarcho-syndicalists in Romania are confronted with. He also addresses the situation of the “non-existent” political left in the country, and the situation of anarchists. Readers are also informed that the I.A.S.R. has made an application for membership in the International Workers Association (IWA) on which the coming congress of the IWA shall decide. [Castellano] [Italiano] read full story / add a comment